1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to a system and method for redirecting a web page in a wireless environment. More particularly, the present invention relates to a system and method for using a Wireless Access Protocol (WAP) gateway to forward a selected URL to a user's account for viewing at a later time.
2. Description of the Related Art
The Internet includes a vast amount of information for a user to access. The user may want to access the information when he is not at a computer terminal. For example, the user may want to know the location of restaurants or gas stations in close proximity to him while he is in his automobile.
Wireless technologies, such as Wireless Access Protocol (WAP), are being implemented to provide Internet access to mobile devices, such as cellular phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs). WAP is a standard protocol for the transmission of data over low bandwidth wireless networks which allows a mobile device to browse the Internet. WAP is implemented using two key components, a WAP gateway and a microbrowser (i.e. mobile device software application). Together, these components enable mobile devices to access information on the Internet.
The WAP gateway converts HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) formatted data to Wireless Mark-up Language (WML) formatted data and visa versa. WML is format which includes text information corresponding to web page selections. WML minimizes wireless bandwidth use because graphics are typically omitted. The WAP gateway may also provide additional information about the microbrowser device through HTTP headers, such as the user's cell phone number, its mobile (i.e., cellular) identifier, and location of the mobile device.
The microbrowser is a software application on a mobile device which receives WML formatted data from the WAP gateway and displays it on the mobile device's screen for the user to view. The microbrowser also sends WML information to the WAP gateway corresponding to the user's selection, such as an address of a web page that the user wishes access.
A challenge found with viewing a web page using a mobile device is the display size of the mobile device. Even with WAP, a web page may include too much information for the mobile device to effectively display. For example, a web page may include multiple options for a user to choose in which a limited number of those options are displayed at one time based upon the number of lines a mobile device is able to display.
A mobile Internet user occasionally locates a web page that appears to be interesting or useful. Due to the challenges described above, the user may not be able to effectively comprehend the content of the web page. Therefore, the user may want to revisit the web page at a later time in an environment offering suitable rendering characteristics (i.e. a computer monitor). A challenge found with revisiting the web page at a later time is remembering the address of the web page. What is needed, therefore, is a way to forward the address corresponding to a web page to a different location allowing the user to revisit the web page at a later time in an environment offering suitable rendering characteristics.